Do's and Don'ts in Parenting - Coping With Difficult Children
As parents we are faced with childhood disorders (like ADHD) which other generations never even had to face. These disabilities create a crisis between children and parents and often the quality of the attachment is affected in a negative way. You may have to face the fact that your child has ADHD and you will need help for ADHD. Whatever the situation parenting techniques will always stand you in good stead.
Child abuse and neglect are often a result of poor parenting techniques especially where exasperated parents go overboard and the results are dramatic for all concerned. Parents are desperately trying to learn techniques which will be effective and save them an expensive trip to a child therapist.
Children are so quick to model the behaviour of their parents. They will not do what the parent says, but they will do what the parents have modelled. Children model the behaviours that the parent has presented to them time and time again.
Parents can move in new and unexpected ways, which throws the children off guard; it may shift tension and anger to silence and laughter instantly. Above all, you use natural consequences for misbehaviour instead of punishment, so the children have to look at how they created their predicaments instead of getting angry at their parents for punishing them. Children can no longer claim that punishments or expectations are unfair, and parents can take on the role of calmly enforcing the pre-arranged consequences instead of having to impress upon the child the seriousness of the problem and scramble to find an appropriate punishment.
Parents can enforce the consequences quoting the rules set down by the whole family. In this way, they can deflect the child's anger at the parents because the child knows that the authority of the family is what counts as the rules have been set down beforehand.
You can surprise your child by acting in a really unexpected manner - this is sometimes called a guerrilla parenting technique. If a child is fighting, then an effective way of dealing with this is to get him to do the sibling's chores the next day. That is much more effective than sending him to his room. The fact that he now has to reflect and actually take the consequences makes a much greater impact on the misbehaving child. Belittling a child or putting her down is not part of guerrilla parenting techniques.
If you have a child showing a negative, snotty attitude, walk by and hand your child a tissue. See if your child figures it out without your help. Don't say anything, just hand it to the child. What about the child who likes to say, 'That's stupid.' If your child says this phrase a lot, say, 'No, this is stupid,' and do something really crazy like walk backwards with your head between your legs. Then, stroll away and leave the child wondering what that was all about.
If your child has been diagnosed with ADHD, you may be a bit wary of ADHD medications which have some alarming side effects. The Adderall ADHD drug, for example, was withdrawn in Canada. Find out what alternative ADHD treatment is available by clicking on the link below.